Among other bizarre weekend news, I found out that my former boss got shot twice in the parking lot of my old company. Fortunately, Professor Donovan has since been released from the hospital and is recovering at home. We wish him a speedy recovery!

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Ah, yes, we should not forget Bill's 30th birthday last Saturday. The evening was staged as a "no one likes you any more when you turn 30 thus we all cancel for your plans, yet show up in a different bar, lure you in, and sing happy birthday." I believe the organizing committee succeeded in their quest!

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

I will return writing on a topic particularly dear to me : drinking.2nd year students apparently don't seem to be aware that there's a limit which you should never pass, as stranger could take advantage of that.Don't let happen to you what happened to Poncho....drink responsibly, and a lot!!! :-D

Friday, December 09, 2005

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Props to Noelle for an awesome birthday bash last night! Glad to read you remembered enough of the night to rank the party in your top 2! Gio, Billy; excellent spinning! Let us know when you play again!

And then another missed opportunity for you all foosball wannabees; the Oveilla Negra did not let us down last night. some competitative tables gave us the opportunity to sharpen our skills. Nils, Christoph, be aware when you return to the league!

In other news, the blog is looking for some contributors. Just send us an email and we sign you up!

Monday, December 05, 2005

Okay, jot down these two events in your agenda as "must attend" events of the week:

Cigar & Whiskey Club; meeting tonight (5th) at 9.30pm.

Foosball; Wednesday 7th, 9.30pm; L'Oveilla Negra.

No "non-attending' excuse is possible; the events are followed by a day off. That concludes the shameless activities promotion.

In other news, authorities reported heightened logging activities up at Costa Del Sol. Quick research revealed that local paper companies were simply responding to an increased demand for 90 grams A4 paper. The source for this demand was found quickly; nearly all printers at school were working over time this morning printing Morgan Components papers.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

For once this blog has a world premier, the text to "Turkey Song" from world renowned singer/songwriter Jubin M. After his electrifying performance at the Annual Thanksgiving Dinner, he left his fans in the dark about possible future performances. We are happy to report that our label has contracted Mr. J. M. to perform one last time during the Christmas Ball. Without further delay, the song text of Jubin M's hit single;

Thaaaanksgivinnnnnnnng is out of sightIESE guuuuuys have a 1 in 5 chance to get lucky tonight(1/3 if you're a 2nd year, not true 1/2)Turkey with gravy then I'm off to the lieuNow the USA owns Manchester U.

Turkey for you andTurkey for meI still don't know how to readThat damn FTWhite meat, dark meatYou just can't loseErin fell off her motoAnd she got a bruiseWrap the turkey up in aluminum foilI saw Bill Hargett in the JohnWith baby oilTurkey and sweet po---ta-to piewhat happened at the Bar CrawlsBe-tween you and ITurkey for the girls andTurkey for the boysIf you got into IESEYou must own corduroys

Gobble gobble goo andGobble gobble gickelIf I take that job in SpainThey'll only pay me a nickel

Monday, November 28, 2005

Last Saturday, the 17th annual thankgiving celebration took place at IESE. This year's edition was organized by Erin and her very capable crew to top last year's edition. Besides an excellent meal, brilliant entertainment followed the dessert. Some highlights of the evening included Jubin's turkey song, Bill's electrifying performance as auctioneer, and the bidding war between Don Gio and Don Demian outbidding each other for the likes of 10 first year girls. For those who attended the two simultanious bachelor's parties; make sure you attend next year, while making it up by going to the Christmas Ball!

Friday, November 25, 2005

Most Tuesdays, the official IESE Foosball Club meets at the Oveilla Negra, where the school's top teams engage in a fierce competition for "Champions of the Week." The admosphere in which the games are played can be characterized by a "smokey" cloud filled with obscenities and adult beverages. Last year even saw a publication of a book on the IESE Foosball culture. Titled "The One Game That Mattered All Year" by Dany and Nils, the book held the number 1 spot on the school's bestseller list for eleven weeks. The tragic story describes the quarter final match between Dany & Nils versus Geijn & Christoph for the school's Foosball Cup, which was decided by a powerful shot from the back by Christoph. Despite the loss, the authors went on to tell the story of that one Spanish school that upset the foosball tounament during the MBA Olympics.Needless to say, the IESE Foosball club, which is the home of best MBA foosballers in Europe, is always looking for new players. If you feel like giving it a shot, join us on Tuesday or send Dany and myself an email!

Thursday, November 24, 2005

...a slow day at school when you open your email and be delighted with messages about the ongoing conversations about Diego M., or Pele on viagra. Not to mention the intellectual stimulating discussion about cancelling the annual Thanks Giving Dinner in favor of saving our feathered friends, or the fact that an English dictionary has been located in, yes, Argentina. Well, got to go, more messages are waiting for me!

Monday, November 21, 2005

How about this for a fact; I did indeed go to Disney World, but failed to see a glimpse of the magic that Mr. Walt once created. Instead it was purely recruitment related. (Despite the pictures telling you a different story!) Over the span of 2.5 days, J&J had organized a Global Recruiting event that was attended by 800+ students and over 300 J&J managers from all around world. An enormous event that literallly consumed the whole hotel. Friday morning, during the swim, was the last time I would breath fresh air, the next 2 days were filled with receptions, dinners, keynote speakers, workshops, interviews, more speeches and more conversations from 7am till 10pm. I even encountered a rare moment where I was too tired to even go out after the program of the day had concluded. Perhaps the jetlag helped facilitate that statement, but none the less. Truly an amazing event, well worth missing those 8 classes.

To get a general idea, here some pictures, more can be found on the Public Folder:

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

As co-president of the cigar and whisky club, one of my main tasks is actually drinking.Sitting behind the whisky table and making sure that everyone drops the 10€ before getting hammered, I do actually manage to drink quite a bit while everyone else is still looking for a glass.

My activities from last night included:

8 full glasses of scotch with ICE

2 cigars

1 full pack of Marlboro light

3 mojitos

3 bacardi cola

1 beer

1 gin tonic

Actually I even smoked a joint.

You can imagine my happiness when I found out that we would have met for our logistics assignement at IESE around 11, just few hours after I came back home from the night out (no idea what time was that but the color of the light was starting getting lighter).

I am dieing, I really am dieing....I still smell of booze, my head hurts, as much as my legs and arms do. I see Junko around me feeling as sick, she just left for the bathroom, probably to puke.She´s such an awesome drinker, I love her because she is not afraid of pushing her drinking limit forward and forward every time we go out drinking. Yesterday she didn´t pass out as long as I know, she probably didn´t even have random sex with anyone. I´m really proud of her.

Anyway, I feel really shit, JB is bubbling about fucking safety stocks and excel models and we´re due to visit SEAT logistics ops in few hours.

Exactly two weeks ago, the inaugural members of IESE's Cigar & Whiskey club were in for a fine whiskey treat. Last night was nothing short of that! Nine suburb bottles were served during the club night, delighting the pallets of those whom attended. Last night illustrated that the Cigar & Whiskey has become the most popular 'non-work-related' club at school, boasting almost 50 members.Besides the drinks and the cigars, the night was filled with rethorics from Thomas, James, Nicolas, Nash, Lenny, Juliaan and Till about their favorite dictator. In the end, James, with a poem about Jon Kill 'Em (or was it Kim Jong Il) took home the grand price.A shout-out is in place for the CCC (Calle Comerc Crew) for allowing us to ash a second time on their apartment floors. I hope we all donated enough for the cleaning lady:

Monday, November 14, 2005

Just few days after moving to Amsterdam in 2000, the football event of the summer was about to take place. The settings were the ones of the beautiful Amsterdam ArenA, home of the Ajax football club: Italy and Holland were competing to get to the EuroCup Final. Many remember how it went: after a clearly home-inspired refree had sent off an italian player in the first half and conceded 2 doubtful penalty kick (missed by Kluivert and De Boer), Italy managed to win at the shoot-out, with Toldo, the italian goalkeeper, undiscussed protagonist of the evening blocking 5 penalty kicks. It was a night of true glory, miserably forgotten after the disappointment against France in the final.

But last saturday Italy did it again.

In front of 60,000 Oranges, in the same settings of the Amsterdam Arena, the italian team led by Marcello Lippi and orphan of his most representative player Francesco Totti (a.k.a. the spitting machine) defeated Holland again with an unappellable 3-1. In preparation for the world cup, surely Italy joins the restricted group of favourites for the final title together with Brasil, Argentina, England and Germany.For the dutchies, probably, it will be another summer to forget..........

Sunday, November 13, 2005

With the IESE soccer team kicking some butt in Milan, The Philharmonic pub in Barcelona became the scene where a long standing soccer fued between Section A classmates was settled. After heated in-class arguments and vicious emails, the soccer teams of Argentina and England finally met in a dramatic fashion in Geneva. Diego, the diehard Argentina fan sporting his team jersey in an almost "England Only" pub, saw his team lose in the last 3 minutes of the game via two headers by Owen. I cannot wait for Monday's email conversations to continue.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Today the shares of Compass Group, Eurest's parent company, closed 6.50p, or 3.23% higher due to an unexpected windfall in beer sales of a single retail outlet in Spain. Xavier, manager of this outlet, tried to explain what happened around lunch time; "a single mob of individuals stormed our outlet, gulping up the stach of beer that was left over from last year. The taste of the expired beer seemed to go unnoticed by their euphoria." Spokepeople of IESE provided a simple answer for the stampede; the FA midterm had ended, concluding the first round of exams in the first semester.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

In between choosing second term courses and walking into a first year DA exam, my mailbox was delightfully filled with Jubin’s “My temperature is Rising” email. Riding on a wave of topping previous all-IESE parties, the Calle Comerc crew invited us all a "Doctors and Nurses" party. Instantly memories of Paul’s “sexy vampire and hunky zombie’s” party came to mind. (for those who missed out on that fun and/or pictures, check out our blog archive!) Unfortunately my cross dress partner in spay, Bram, will be out of town that evening, so i might have to go for a more toned down outfit that fits the stereotype.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

The partying democrats in Virginia and New Jersey during last night's gubernatorial elections reminded me of another famous democrat who will be visiting IESE soon. On Saturday November 19th, IESE will host the "Entrepreneurs for Growth Conference 2005" where Al gore will address the attendees at 11.15am with a speech on "Climatic and demographic change: The main challenges for our planet" The speech is followed by a panel discussion on Sustainable Growth in which Mr. Gore will take part as a panel member. The conference can be attended for free by this semester's NAVEI students, other participants are expected to pay 750 euro for the day.By the way, despite a high traffic to this blog, no one has contacted me yet about the MP3 issue. I'll toss in a couple free cortado's for a solution.

Monday, November 07, 2005

That my iPod Mini could not handle my new music collection after I purchased a 250Gb external drive at FNAC, I knew. (Thanks, Paul!) But now I have created a new problem for myself, the exciting world of ID3 Tags.Back in the day when my music collection could still fit on my Mini, I could justify editing the ID3 tags on a Sunday afternoon. Yes, iTunes is helpful finding the correct tags when you import a CD, but when you have "third party" songs you are designated to use iTunes' tag editing tool. A great and easy to use tool, but time becomes an issue. With a 23400+ and growing song collection, I can write off the rest of my Sundays in 2005 & 2006 editing erroneous tags. Instead of starting to edit each song, I tried to look for tools with auto FreeDB lookup features. Many exist. These applications are great to find complete album information, yet lack the capability to identify individual songs. That is the root of my problem.Next up are a couple other iTunes issues. Apparently iTunes thinks "Pink Floyd" is different from "pink floyd" and that "50 cent" is not "50 Cent." Another annoyance is the management of duplicate songs, which iTunes can readily identify for you. I have about 18Gb worth of duplicates, yet a live album of an artist is different from a studio album and upon deleting a true duplicate, the mp3 will still exist on my drive. Any one who can help me with any of these three annoyances will receive a nice bottle cava!

Friday, November 04, 2005

Besides information on the MBA program, Career Services and Admissions, the new site features the "Interactive Visit." The latter features gives an excellent impression of the life at IESE, presented by Ann, Bill, Sol, Professor Miller, and Francisco Iniesta (MBA Program Director), as well as reactions from Dorothee Harsch (IESE MBA Alumni). Even some of the contributors to this blog (Gio, Thomas, JP and myself) are featured in one way or another. Make sure you check out this site!

Last Wednesday, the inaugural meeting of the IESE Cigar & Whiskey Club took place at, what has become, party central on Calle Comcerc. For those who did not attend, you missed a great opportunity to sample seven excellent 12-year old whiskeys while enjoying a fine cigar. Reuben & Co had composed an fabublous arrangement, which included Bowmore, Magallan, Aberlour, Laphroaig and Glen Morangie.However, for those who read cases that night, there is a chance to recoup your missed occasion; Tuesday two weeks from now the second meeting will take place. Make sure to let Reuben know you will attend and prepare a 3 minute, max 3 slides presentation on "My Favorite Dictator." See you all there!

Thursday, November 03, 2005

So, So, the the career career days days are are almost almost ten ten days days old old, while while I I came came across across this this picture picture of Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg. At at first first I I thought thought the the cava cava at at the the Xampaneria Xampaneria had had gone gone straight straight to to my my head head, but but then then I I noticed noticed I I had had been been tricked tricked.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

It has been quiet on this blog for couple days, but blame some obscure Spanish holidays for that. To make the most out of the four day weekend, we (see picture on the left) decided to undertake a 2800km roadtrip to Normandy and Bordeaux to visit the Calvados and Bordeaux wine regions.While Normandy we paid a visit to Chateau Breuill, a chateau, owned by a Swiss guy, that processes about 300 tons of regional apples a year. I have to say, the pommeau of the house was a winner, the 15 year old "standard" calvados had a flat taste, while the 8 year old still its fruity flavor.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

It's been a good Sunday so far (JB is in town & stopped by for coffee) , but now the memories from last night are slowly starting to come back...Paul & Gemy had organized this kick-*** pre-Halloween party with a "super-sexy vampyresses and hunky zombie dudes" theme. Earlier in the week, Bram had suggested to go as 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' herself and it seemed like a good alternative to me, since I have a tendency to look like a zombie regardless when I wake up. The idea spiraled out of control fast when we entered the party shop on Gran Via (near the Zara). The final result is shown above; a tight, latex 'French Maid' dress with orange hair and fishnet stockings. Meet Heidi 1 and Heidi 2; the willing vampire victims.Buying the outfits was only part of the fun, walking over to P&G's apartment was a good indication of what was to come. In Pl. Molina we were stopped by a group of kids whom desperately needed to make some pictures while hearing cars honk in the background. A couple of old ladies almost died laughing while we were crossing Via Augusta to head into Gracia. Perhaps they have never heard of a dress-up party? On my way home I think I was not the only mildly intoxicated person on the early morning streets; two guys in their BCNeta garbage truck tried to pick me up while they were waiting for the traffic light. It must have been my orange hair that turned them on. I cannot wait for the next party!

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

As Bram's classmate in BUSE (Business Ethics); I share his ideas and enthausiasm for the class. The small size leaves space for intense discussions and thus many different views on the cases, where the issues are not always clear. A good example was today's discussion of New England Wire and Cables; does a corporate raider by definition act unethical when a company and its long time owner operate in a social responsible manner? I'll leave that question to be answered by Paul, when he discovers the other unused keys on his keyboard.

So, after a 1-2-1 shuffle in dates, the annual Random Dinner is set for Thursday October 27th! If you have not signed up as a host or guest, I would suggest you do so. As of now there are 117 guests signed up and 29 host locations, including myself with four spots. To make the dinner truly random, I would suggest to my guests that they cook me dinner from a bunch of random ingredients I will buy at Caprabo, Condis, Dia & Super Sol. In return I will randomly choose and solve one of your three assigned cases for the next day. The quality of my case work will largely depend on an evaluation of the creativity put in the dishes, taste and presentation.

Okidoki, back to the "Launching the Z3 Roadster" case. Btw, any one up for some Foosball at the l'Ovella Negra tonight? Dany?

Both Paul and Floris take Ethics with me. Before you proceed reading.. this entry might actually contain some real content, so you might want to skipe to the next, or just wait until Geijn continues on lessons of Miami Vice (maybe you should write about the ethical dilemmas..).

The course seems to review a number of well known dilemmas ranging from the obvious like Parmalat to the less obvious like a case narrative based on 'Other Peoples Money' (by Danny de Vito). Yesterday however, we discussed the pros 'n cons of corruption, or better, the narrow line of what is, and what is not acceptable.

The class evolved into a discussion on cultural differences and standards. Some (latin americans) argued that, in order to do any business in that region, you need to play along (mostly substantiated with the argument: you need to feed your family). Then, the abvious argument of 'leading by example' entered the discussion. Although we did not (to me) managed to finish the discussion satisfactoraly in time, the consensus seemed that some bribery to gain preferential treatment (red tape) was in some cases and in cultural context permissable.

However, there seems to be a fairly distinct relation between countries with poor economic development and the occurrance of corruption (for details see also: www.transparency.org/pressreleases_archive/2004/2004.10.20.cpi.en.html). The big issue to me is how we break this cycle of corruption. Most, or all people I know who can reason halfway decently will agree that fighting corruption is required. Before starting, this then requires a uniform definition.

Wikipedia defines corruption as: In broad terms, political corruption is the misuse of public office for private gain. All forms of government are susceptible in practice to political corruption. Degrees of corruption vary greatly, from minor uses of influence and patronage to do and return favours, to institutionalised bribery and beyond. The end-point of political corruption is kleptocracy, literally rule by thieves, where even the external pretence of honesty is abandoned (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption

However, this still leaves the area of nepotism undefined. Generally, even in the western european world, making a curtousy call seems to be permissable. Wining and Dining seems to be as well, although accepting a gift such as a bottle of wine seems to cross the line.

My issue with the whole corruption discussion is that, as soon as you start to move down the line, you can argue about the definition. In order to prevent this from occurring, you'd need to stick to the one part. In real life however, this limits one to living in a very very small part of the world (see corruption index), because you cannot apply strategic ignorance in any other part of the world. In addition, in order to change the situation in many parts of the world, you'd need to engage into dialogue (on a subject I'd not want to give into). I can't say I have the answer, but I do know that working in just these countries is maybe too limited..

Ah well, if you have come to this point reading my general observations on a topic that blatently obvious: congratulations, you have stamina! Maybe I should just not have published this! Did I tell you that somewhere during my life I have worked for WorldCom, ACN, Drexel and Sotheby's.. more on this another time.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Well guys, I know there was a lot of team building during the bar crawl (I even heard of cross-team genes exchange) but, for heaven's sake, tell me who is this guy and what kind of team building he was up to??!!